Five things that went well for the Leafs this season

Toronto Maple Leafs: Five things that went well

James Reimer opened the season as their starting goaltender but has vanished, lost to an unknown injury. One of their most productive forwards has been out for weeks with a separated shoulder, and more seem to join him on the sidelines every day, leaving the impression that the Toronto Maple Leafs are, quite literally, limping to the end of the regular season.

It has been a cruel journey for the team and its fans, beginning when Reimer suffered his season-altering concussion in October — an injury believed to be related to whatever has been ailing him this month — and going downhill quickly in the last two months. Ron Wilson was fired as coach on March 2, after the last of the wheels had fallen off.

The Leafs own one of the National Hockey League’s worst penalty-killing units (29th overall as of Monday), and have lost 20 of their last 26 games. Toronto finally ended an 11-game home losing skid over the weekend under the new coach, Randy Carlyle, but not soon enough to avoid unwanted punctuation to end its season.

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With the Florida Panthers on the verge of qualifying for the playoffs for the first time in 12 years, the Leafs are faced with inheriting the league’s longest active playoff drought, dating back to 2004. That is seven seasons without a trip to the playoffs.

So where is the hope for next year?

“I don’t know if I look at it as ‘hope,’ ” Carlyle said Monday. “There’s some things that I know that we can do well as a hockey club, and there’s some things that I know that are stopping us from doing well. And we have to correct those things to give ourselves the best chance for success.”

Here is a slightly more specific look at some of the (few) things that went well for the Leafs this season, and which might offer a glimmer of optimism to a long-suffering fan base in Toronto:

A dynamic duo
Before he was lost to a separated shoulder in a game on March 6, a case could have been made that Joffrey Lupul was the team’s most valuable player. The 28-year-old was three goals away from matching his career-high (28), but had already set a personal best in points (67) because of his work with linemate Phil Kessel.

Lupul has assisted on 17 of Kessel’s 37 goals this season but has missed the last 13 games with his shoulder injury. (Kessel has four goals in those 13 games, which is a 25-goal pace.) Both forwards are under the age 30 — Kessel is only 24 — and both are under contract through next season.

A silent Swede
For all of the money the Leafs have thrown at their blue line (a cap hit of about US$22-million this season), a player with one of the most reasonable contracts has quietly logged the second-most ice time on the roster. Carl Gunnarsson, a 25-year-old with another year left on a contract carrying a bargain-basement cap hit of US$1.325-million, is averaging 21 minutes 58 seconds of ice time this season in a pairing with captain Dion Phaneuf.

He has been used on both special teams and remained with Phaneuf on the top pairing even after Carlyle replaced Wilson last month. “It feels good,” Gunnarsson said Monday. “A confidence booster, right?”

A crop of hopefuls
One veteran NHL scout watching a recent Marlies game was convinced forward Nazem Kadri could play in the NHL full time. Kadri, who scored once in a recent two-game emergency callup, has six goals in his last seven games with the Marlies.

The Leafs are hopeful that Joe Colborne, recalled from the Marlies on Monday to replace an injured Mikhail Grabovski, will make a serious charge at the big team’s roster this fall. Korbinian Holzer, a 6-foot-3, 205-pound Marlies defenceman who is finishing his second season in North America, is also worth a look.

Forward Brad Ross, a second-round pick two years ago, scored 42 goals in 68 games with the Portland Winterhawks in the Western Hockey League this season, mixing in a team-high 163 penalty minutes for good measure. Forward Greg McKegg, a third-round pick two years ago, has four points in four playoff games with the London Knights.

A draft lottery
Despite their win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday, the Leafs still held a piece of 26th place in the overall NHL standings on Monday, which would be good enough for a shot at winning the NHL’s draft lottery. (Teams can move up a maximum of four places with the lottery, meaning no team higher than 26th can have a shot at the No. 1 pick.)

If they can somehow lose their three remaining games, the Leafs could probably sink to as low as 27th overall, which would give them a 10.7% chance of landing the top pick.

A (cleansed) theme song
On Saturday, for the first time this season, the Leafs won at home after their theme song — Free to Be, by former Glass Tiger frontman Alan Frew — was played as part of the pre-game show. Toronto is now 1-10-3 with Free to Be this season.

“It’s not about a song,” Frew wrote in an email to the National Post on Monday. “It’s about learning you cannot take your foot off the gas, not even for a second. This team is young, they’ll learn that, and they’ll get it right.”